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Lunch with Antarctic legends
15:41 p.m. EST Dec 1, 2003
Damien, from the Omega Livingston GPS Expedition got to have lunch with some living Antarctic legends previous to his flight onto the ice just a few days ago. If everything went to plan, Damien and the crew should be en route to Livingston Island, if not there by this point.
Damien’s latest update:
“I took an hour out of our final day to have lunch with two Antarctic legends. John Evans (left) made the first ascent of both Vinson Massif and Mt Tyree, the two highest peaks in Antarctica. In 1966-67 season the American Antarctic Mountaineering Expedition, led by Nick Clinch, made the first ascent of many of the high peaks in the Sentinel Range, using US government support.
All of the 10-man party climbed Vinson, in three groups over three days of December '66, but only John Evans and Barry Corbet summited Tyree, which they reached by climbing over Mt Gardner, Antarctica’s fifth-highest peak, and continuing over technical ground late in the day on January 6th '67. This was the hardest summit of the expedition and Tyree was not climbed again for 23 years. Just before Tyree John also made the third ascent of Mt Shinn, the third highest.
It had been climbed days earlier by teammates, so when John and Barry climbed Tyree, they were the first and only people to have summited the three highest peaks in Antarctica (a feat not matched until 1997, by Conrad Anker, achieved over several expeditions). John's other big climb was the first ascent of the legendary Hummingbird Ridge on Mt Logan in Canada. He was also on the infamous 1976 US Nanda Devi expedition, where Willi Unsoeld's daughter Devi died and on the 1974 US expedition to the Pamir, where US climber Garry Ullin lost his life on Pik Lenin, amongst the other tragedies of that season.
John lives in Colorado and works for Raytheon, the company that does the logistics for the US Antarctic Program. He is currently busy working to supply and assist US scientific field parties working on the Antarctic Peninsula. Alejo Contreras (right) has been involved with nearly every significant Antarctic adventure of the last 20 years. Originally from Santiago, Alejo flew on the early flights that set up ANI (he even guided founder Giles Kershaw up Vinson in '85) and has worked with Reinhold Messner, Ranulph Fiennes, Roger Mear and many others on expeditions like the International Trans Antarctic Expedition that crossed with dogs, the Norman Vaughan expedition that made the first ascent of Mt Vaughan and too many others to mention.
He spent numerous seasons guiding for ANI, including 16 climbs on Vinson, as well as guiding on the first ever commercially guided traverse to the South Pole in 1988-89 and the first tourist flight to the Pole in 1987. Climbing, skiing, working, on planes, on ships, anywhere in Antarctica - Alejo has done it. Alejo has also travelled in South Africa and undertaken smaller journeys in the wilds of Tierra del Fuego. He currently works for DAP, the airline which is flying the Omega Livingston team to their destination this year.”
-Damien
On the expedition this year will be Damien Gildea, 34, of Australia, Chilean Rodrigo Fica, 36, an Australian GIS specialist John Bath, 33, and a Chilean student, Osvaldo Usaj. The aim this year is to first ascend Mount Friesland on Livingston Island and record it’s proper height by means of a GPS. The information collected by the Omega expedition will be combined with previous maps and research to make a more accurate map of the area that will be available sometime in 2004.
Image courtesy of Damon Gildea.
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